Pizza-shop owner hit with $5K fine for too few work shirts

The owner of several local Papa John’s pizza locations was fined more than $5,500 by the State Labor Department for not providing employees with enough uniform shirts — one per shift, even if the employee worked just a few hours on a given day. If he appealed, the owner was told, the process could take years because of a backlog, and interest would accrue on the fine. Read the story here.

Steve Barnes

61 Responses

Why would anyone start of biz. in NY? This article doesn’t get into the excessive taxes, etc. in NY.
Cuomo could be a hero to the small biz communityif he personally intervened and over-ruled – in a very public way – his own DOL agency.

NY pols and bureaucrats need to adopt a much more laissez-faire approach to business and do the bare minimum. Safety and humane working conditions should be about it.

What if Mr. King had decided to run his franchise with NO company logo shirts and his employees wore whatever they wanted – sort of like employees at dept. stores??
So, because he decided to bring logo’d shirts into the mix – at his discretion – he now is required to buy into a whole new set of regulations that mandate a new shirt for each shift?

I don’t really see what he could appeal, it looks like the regulations were pretty clearly laid out and he wasn’t in accordance with them and he doesn’t deny that. I do believe that there should be a way to appeal that some of the regulations are excessive and/or unnecessary before you breach them though.

That (#3), is it your belief that generic-oriented documents written from more than 2,000 to about 220 years ago can be legitimately compared to modern-day cheese regulations? And do you consider it insignificant that the cheese regulations may directly affect human health, while the other items clearly don’t?

Given the complexities of life today, “[t]he tyranny of bureaucracy” is an absolute necessity.

And amy (#1), please explain, in detail, your expertise in the area of shirt-wearing during restaurant work.

I’m not going to be losing any sleep over a corporate franchisee getting caught not following the required regulations. It’s not like he isn’t in the BUSINESS of running a restaurant, and it’s not like these are any huge secret regulations. In fact, he should take this up with his uniform supplier, for not watching his back.

I find this appalling. Why on Earth would he be responsible for providing a shirt for every day the person worked? That’s insane. When I was a kid working in fast food, I was lucky if I had 2 uniforms and I worked everyday in filthy conditions.

Come on people, if a company is supplying uniforms to its workers, it needs to supply enough uniforms for that worker to get through 5 days of work. Restaurants are not the only businesses that have to abide by this rule. So it stinks that he has to pay the fine, but it was his choice to make his workers wear a “uniform” of sorts.

This is both a health issue and an employee/workplace issue. The regulations are in place to ensure that employees who work where uniforms are required are not unfairly gouged for the cost of obtaining and maintaining (read: laundering) specialty clothing like uniformed shirts/aprons/etc.

It is not unreasonable that it be required of the employer to supply an employee with enough clean shirts that he can work a weeks worth of shifts and have a clean shirt for every shift he works. The other options? The employee must either spend for to launder or wears a nasty, dirty shirt while they’re serving your pizza.

Ray (#17) — well said. I just see ppl. like him (and now #18, too) as part of the problem.

Even if you buy into the notion that he violated some illogical regulation, at most he should have gotten a warning/education that he was in non-compliance. Not a fine. You know how hard it is to make $$ running a pizza shop? Granted, he has several franchises – so maybe he is more successful – but still, it wasn’t like the shirts had 4-day old food stains on them and were unsanitary…………willie!!

So the law says that if you require your employees to look more presentable by wearing uniforms while working you run the risk of violating laws set up to regulate employers who willingly choose to have their employees wear uniforms and then they make you pay hefty fines for violating them. However if you allow your employees to wear whatever they want to work the state doesn’t get involved at all and you don’t have to follow any rules and you can’t get fined. Basically the laws are set up so that you are better off just letting people wear whatever they want.

And while we’re at it, we can conveniently forget that for many recent years, NYS had a Republican governor – and it’s virtually always had a Republican Senate.

And we can rejoice that so many do-badders know infinitely more about how to run the government than the government itself does, even though it was elected.

And we can also meditate on the fact that the people blaming Democrats apparently would like to turn over ALL governments – US and all states – to a party that has no interest in doing much but decreasing taxes on the rich and creating a sexual Inquisition.

Another example of the lack of common sense and logic by our government when drafting and passing legislation. Regulation should be more of a last resort to solving a problem that in this case business owners have refused or not been to solve on their own. It is ridiculous. Why not make all restuarants with more than one uniformed employee install a washer in dryer in the kitchen?

Regarding the excessive fine and dealing with the reality of the climate business owners have to abide by, why is the first course of action a warning for such a benign issue i.e. while conducting the audit why not educate business owners on issues uncovered during the audit and could be resolved in a few sentence conversation instead of issuing outrageous fines to raise money for a state that does not know how not to spend money it does not have without continuing to tax/fine/license/permit (call it what you want) all of us to make up for government incompetence and lack of accountability. (is that even a sentence?)

This is a great example of why people who can are choosing to leave this state. If I am not mistaken, I believe NY is losing two members in the House primarily due to the loss of population.

It’s a ridiculous rule. My boyfriend is a firefighter with four shifts a week and he has 2 uniform shirts for summer and 2 for winter. We just do laundry a few times a week and hope the shirts don’t fall apart.

@11 B – Yeah, I had to wash them daily, they got so greasy it was disgusting. But I washed them daily, I wasn’t provided 5 uniforms.

And yes, I’m a health inspector now, and to this day, 15 years in the business, I’ve never seen a place as dirty as the places this guy owned. And now he owns some of the ‘fancy’ restaurants that many people on this blog sing the praises of. No thank you.

C’mon now – Diamond Dave would care less what YOU wear to work.
I think you may have a point though about the Hot Pockets.
So does this now mean when we buy frozen pizzas – we get a free polo shirt?, I mean we ARE making it..and we ARE delivering it. Are we not in essence working for ourselves? Do I now have to have 5 days worth of shirts just to make frozen pizzas? Complicated issue – certainly NOT WORTH 5k to the govt of NY State though. Damn, did I just go overboard?

jenn, the difference is that firehouse is not a business profiting off the lack of uniform shirts provided. The pizza place is passing the burden of extra laundry on to the workers to improve their own profits.

Ask anyone you know in a business subject to State regulation (most of them) and you will hear similar tales. Every State agency is under orders (my opinion) to generate as much revenue as it can, The best way to do it is with these “little” fines which just don’t make economic sense to fight.

I agree completely with williepitt. As a matter of fact, I think we need more regulation to make sure our food is safe. Both of my sets of grandparents died before the age of 15 because neither NYS nor Albany county did not do enough to protect them! Same happened to my parents! All they ever wanted was clean shirts and over inspected restaurants! What a bunch of BS. Where was NYS when I needed them?

Make the employees bring in their dirty shirts to trade for clean ones. If they lose it or ruin it more than regular wear and tear, they pay for a new one. When an employer provides things for the employees the employees treat them like crap. When the employees are responsible for the item then all of the sudden they treat them carefully.

#26, You took the words out of my mouth. Some people just love to throw their political views in whether they’re relevant or not.

The law is in place for a reason and NY has some of the toughest laws when it comes to food. Why does this anger people? It’s for your own protection. Imagine the pizza guy who gets home from a late shift with no time to wash his shirt before the next shift…imagine it being thrown on a floor infested with dog hair and who knows what else. Now imagine a street vendor not using gloves…serving food all day at a festival with nothing but a port-a-potty to use and no running water in sight. Hmmm…I’ll take the tougher NYS laws any day. Look into what other states require for food service and you may think twice about eating out of state.

Not everyone has a washer and dryer in their home. Expecting people to go to the laundromat every couple of days so they can wear a clean shirt *while they prepare and serve food to the public* seems pretty unreasonable to me. The fine is high, maybe even too high, but when you cut corners, you take the chance of getting caught and held responsible. No sympathy for the franchise owner here.

I would bet the regulation was put in place to justify the State of NY paying State employees who wear uniforms the “cost” of cleaning them. My brother and his wife work for the State of NY and are paid to dry clean uniforms that are permanent press wash and dry. Even if a company provides a uniform I do not believe that the employer should also have to pay to clean the uniform unless there is a special need – such as dry cleaning the uniform. These rules were written when the average person had no ready access to a washing machine.

Good point Elmer – maybe the NY govt can now make the owner of these types of businesses lease cars every three years – so they arent filthy with personal garbage strewn all over – LIKE dog hair, I mean who knows where those hands have been and then these drivers are touching that damn dirty steering wheel then touching my pizza box – or bag with wings, or my chinese food.
They can lease the cars from an Albany area car dealer who kicks back a percentage to the NY govt for buying cars through that particular dealership. I feel this program will be a HHUUUGGGEEE !!! success.

The article fails to point out that this could be a health concern. Not giving food workers enough shirts means they could come in multiple days with unwashed shirts. Would you really want someone making your pizza with a shirt they’ve worn multiple shifts?

We help people who are unemployed, we provide sec 8, food stamps, rent assistance. But small Business owners in NYS get the short end.Get no assistance and get the run around.
I guess NYS would rather have this guy close his business and have all his workers on unemployment.Not a warning but 5k fine.
Assembley man Robert Reiley good for you for trying to stand up for whats right. I dealt with this run around for years then saw the light and sold my business’s got out of NYS.

I know someone that worked for the department of labor as an investigator. There IS a way around this. A business doesnt need to supply shirts unless they are uniform shirts with a logo on it. If he makes the uniform just a “navy blue polo shirt” and then gives them a “Papa John” name tag THEN he doesnt have to supply ANY shirts to his workers. I would suggest to him that he do that!

This was not a fine that goes into the State’s pocket. This article gives a misrepresentation by calling this a “fine.” Instead it is an underpayment that will be divided accordingly amongst the employees based upon the wash-and-wear provision of the hospitality wage order. Employees are being compensated the cost of having to wash the shirts in between shifts due to the employer not giving one shirt per shift each week. If the employer was not trying to save $$$ by shorting employees shirts, he would never be in this position.

Also, if there were not so many employers out there who hire illegal aliens to work for pennies, then the appeals process would not be so clogged. Employers who take advantage of people and pay them less than minimum wage are a significant reason as to why there are so many pending appeals. Don’t be so quick to blame the State for everything!

Spare me Labor Law. This issue has zero to do with illegals, or off the book payments, or anything other than a bureaucracy which must assert its relevance. Note in the article DOL performed a multi-day audit of the company, and came away with nothing–but this.

Why? Because you always have to be guilty of something, it’s just the way DOL works.

By the way, do you really think the owner was trying to “short the employee shirts”?

Elmer – What makes you a DOL expert? I know for a fact that they conduct thousands of investigations per year and in many of them claims are invalid and the employer walks away with zero violations. This employer was audited because an employee filed a claim against him. He was not randomly selected for an audit.

That’s curius LL that you know something about this. so tell me, did you/your friend file a calim about inadequate shirts? Thought not.

I have dealt with DOL more than I care to, and everything I have said about their investigations is correct.

Wp, how am I being absurd by pointing out that if this is a health issue than every food prep workers clothing is a health issue? And when did DOL obtain jurisdiction over health matters? This is a dipstick state regulation enforced in a dipstick manner in this case, period.

Eat, drink and be candid, with Times Union Senior Writer Steve Barnes

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